Replacement
by Martinet Atom
Summary: Aang's chief aim in death is to be a constant source of bother for Ichigo. Or so Ichigo thinks. Gen


Summary: Aang's chief aim in death is to be a constant source of bother for Ichigo. Or so Ichigo thinks. Gen; AU where Aang dies from exhaustion aftertaking Ozai's powers.

Disclaimer: I own neither Avatar: the last airbender, nor Bleach, and I'm making no profit out of this.

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><p>The new kid talks more than Inoue and makes only slightly more sense than her. It wouldn't have been so bad if he also didn't persist in dogging Ichigo's every step. He lengthens his stride on the labyrinthine streets of Seireitei, in the vague hope that he'll lose the kid behind a corner somewhere, but so far the small, orange-clad figure has had no difficulty keeping up.<p>

"...and then Mr. Yamamoto said I could stay here even if I've ended up in the wrong afterlife, though I don't think this is wrong at all. The way I see it, I'm just paving the way for my friends. Does that make sense?"

Not much about the kid makes sense. His power's depth and limits are as of yet unknown, but what he's shown of them makes Captain Kurotsuchi cry and Zaraki Kenpachi salivate. He can control the elements all right, but why? Does he have a soul slayer's special ability without the actual soul slayer? Is his soul slayer invisible? Ichigo wouldn't have cared - the kid doesn't seem dangerous - except the problem keeps trailing him, impossible to ignore, rubbing his face in how different the kid's experience of Soul Society is from Ichigo's own.

For Ichigo, what came after death meant monsters trying to eat him, people trying to stick sharp objects into him, and occasionally being kicked in the head in place of affection. Which was more or less what his routine had been before death, only with less homework and worse plumbing. For the kid, death is an amusement park where everyone and everything is unfamiliar and intriguing, but never threatening, and his only regret is that his friends aren't here with him.

Ichigo's own friends _are_ mostly here with him. As a rule, because he'd gotten them killed. But at least it had been by accident, he hadn't done it for the company.

"My friend, Sokka, he wouldn't be who he is without trying any afterlife available, and Toph would never let me have fun without her. She would probably fit right away in here; she likes fighting, as long as no one expects her to follow any orders. Everyone says you don't so I guess that's all right."

Ichigo grits his teeth at that. He knows he doesn't have a problem with authority. Authority is just fine and dandy, keeping people from panicking like headless chickens and endangering their own lives in a hundred creative ways. It's just that authority amazingly often translates into people telling Ichigo what to do, and, for some reason, most of the time he's not inclined to fall in line with that. Rukia says it's because he's an insubordinate, stubborn ass. Ichigo thinks it's because the orders are stupid. He would, of course, follow orders that made sense. Absolutely.

Nobody expects the kid to follow orders. He'd said he didn't believe in violence and so he didn't want to be a shinigami. If Ichigo had tried that, he would have been staring at the inside of a cell faster than Renji could inhale taiyaki. Then again, Ichigo saying he's a pacifist would probably mean he'd been switched with a pod person, so locking him up would be only logical, but still.

"She'd probably stick new nicknames on everyone by the end of the first week. Do you think Mr. Yamamoto would mind getting called, say, Ribbonbeard? I was a little worried about her, about everyone really, because I died before I had a chance to find out what happened to the rest of them, but Rangiku said they're probably all alive, otherwise they would have been here already. Then she poured me some Mule Kiss. I think she called it that, but I'm not sure because I sniffed it and got dizzy. Toshiro wouldn't let me drink it though."

Ichigo doesn't even want to think what he'd have to do to get his hands on some of Matsumoto's Mule Kick sake. The Shinigami men's association has been scheduling monthly searches for Rangiku's secret stash, and so far they've only found rivers of regular sake, something that might have been paint thinner, and a stack of apparently very interesting pictures of Kira and Hisagi that had made the rounds through the squads for months afterwards.

Nobody would show them to Ichigo though. Renji had said that if Yoruichi's transformations made Ichigo shriek like a scalded pig, then he should really not look at Rangiku's photo collections for his own sake. Ichigo had thwacked him over the head with the flat of his sword because he'd never done anything as indignant as shriek, thank you very much, and then Renji had gotten in his face, one thing had led to another and then to a lot of really vigorous sparring (and not a brawl, no matter what Ichigo's Captain had said later). Ichigo had never had the opportunity to ask Renji why he hadn't told him before that Hisagi and Kira could turn into cats like Yoruichi could, or why Renji had thought Ichigo couldn't handle a couple of kitty pictures. It's really annoying how people here still act like he's twelve.

"...Ikkaku says Mr Kenpachi doesn't _really_ want to kill me, he's just very dedicated to training. I'm sure that's true but the whole thing's really dangerous, he could hurt himself. "

At least Kenpachi's stopped trying to ambush Ichigo into a fight in favor of trying to best the actual 12-year-old. Wait, come to think of it, that's pretty depressing. And of course Ikkaku likes the kid, no two guesses why. If Ichigo had no hair, he'd like hanging around other bald people too.

"...and Renji says Zabimaru likes me, so I can come pick his fleas whenever I want. That's really nice of him. Zabimaru reminds me of a bigger Momo, only he eats less."

Ichigo idly wonders what exactly about Hinamori resembles a giant tattooed white gorilla, but he knows better than to reply. That would only encourage the kid. Two more blocks and he can drop him off at the Third division, where they're sure to stuff him full of persimmons, which should shut him up for a while and enable Ichigo to make his escape.

It's really off-putting, how this prodigy pipsqueak had sprung out of nowhere, messing up Ichigo's life - or death, whatever - sticking his nose in everything that's going on, doing things his own way, changing everyone's routine by his mere presence.

What has he done to deserve this, Ichigo has no idea.


End file.
